Taste of the future – special report

Sam Millar, director of cereals and cereal processing, Campden BRI

Cereal crops will continue to develop, particularly for crops, such as oats, that are outside of the mainstream wheat, corn and rice. Much of this will be driven by dietary considerations such as soluble fibre or micronutrient levels. Dairy will also continue to develop, with a focus on protein-rich ingredients that fulfil nutritional and technical functionality, which will feed into new product development for beverages.

More broadly, there will continue to be interest in novel plant ingredients, and this will not just apply to those grown on land; seaweed will continue to be of interest as a novel source of micronutrients and as a seasoning, and it will also benefit from the foraging trend seen in the celebrity chef/fine-dining sector.

Plant-derived sweeteners will continue to be a topical area, with the use of stevia derivatives as well as the development of monk fruit as a sweetener.

The challenges facing the industry include sustainability of supply, variability of quality, regulatory approvals, consumer acceptance and cost. Opportunities include novelty, new functionality and positive consumer perception around 'natural' products.

In my view, beverages such as smoothies and shakes, and cereal-based products will be in a position to benefit the most from these ongoing developments.

Larry Fernandes, president, International Stevia Council

Any emerging raw material for a mass-volume ingredient has to deliver great taste, scalable and sustainable supply, and cost-effective pricing.

If it fails one or more of these criteria, it will tend to only have the capability of being a niche product.

Looking at the world of natural sweeteners today, only sugar, corn and stevia meet these criteria. All other natural sweeteners (honey, agave and monk fruit, for example) fail one or more of these tests and therefore could only ever be niche.

Although reb A has historically been the most commonly isolated steviol glycoside that continues to grow, some other steviol glycosides may provide formulators with an additional tool for success when naturally sweetening products with reduced sugar is being targeted.

There are many new raw materials that have the capability of being small or niche applications; it is rare for new raw materials to emerge that have mass-volume ingredient capability. Although a current market leader, stevia has much potential for additional growth in the ingredient sector.

The natural, non-GMO characteristics that consumers have been moving towards are certainly getting the most attention, and stevia-based solutions meet these growing demands within the ingredient industry.

Stevia is an interesting case study. On one level, it is not new; it has been known about for thousands of years and first-generation stevia ingredients have been used in Asia for more than half a century.

Now, however, technology and innovation have enabled second and third-generation stevia to break through the barriers - taste and cost - that were holding it back. Having overcome taste and cost challenges, the potential is there for stevia to genuinely become mass volume on a global basis, and in doing so make a real difference to millions of people.

The world faces obesity and diabetes epidemics. Any ingredients that address these issues in the most affected markets will take priority. These issues create challenges for all food and beverage product sectors and markets, and as such require more global mass-volume ingredient solutions. If the question is posed of small, niche ingredient capabilities, then there will be a variety of niche ingredients that may apply in specific specialised product sectors and markets.

If, however, the question is posed of new ingredients with mass-volume capabilities, then the answer lies in looking at global challenges. Stevia has an important role to play, and evidence indicates that the market is increasingly receptive to stevia. If you look at regional markets, then the example in North America of the non-GMO trend certainly creates additional opportunities going forward.

Rachel Wilson, ingredients and additives enquiries, Leatherhead Food Research

A key trend is the ongoing hunt for alternative sources for protein. Global meat consumption is due to increase by 80% between now and 2050, while 70% of the world's agricultural land is already being used for livestock production, so there is an obvious need to look for alternatives sources of protein. Insects may offer part of the solution, as there are already around 1,900 species eaten in the world today, albeit this is limited mainly to tropical countries. Could beetles, butterflies, ants, grasshoppers, crickets, locusts and even stink bugs be appearing in our food in the future.

Although a rich and untapped source, the key challenges here are clearly consumer acceptance and developing products that offer a mainstream alternative rather than a niche or novelty solution. It will also represent an interesting marketing challenge. Creating products that taste good will be key. If consumers are aware that insect protein is on the menu, there will be a strong underlying 'yuck' factor - and this is before the product even touches their lips. Making protein-rich flours and formulating them into highly flavoured mainstream product categories such as savoury snacks may be the most successful route to market.

A second new stream may be krill, particularly as a source of omega-3. For example, K-REAL is one of Enzymotec's line of premium omega-3 products, extracted from sustainable Antarctic krill using a unique proprietary extraction process called MSO. K-REAL is comprised of naturally occurring phospholipids, triglycerides bound to EPA and DHA, and the antioxidant astaxanthin. K-REAL has been clinically proven to be significantly more effective than fish oil in increasing the omega-3 index, although it may face the same challenges as fish oil in terms of flavour and overall consumer acceptability.

Keeping with the ocean theme, seaweed is another rich source of natural ingredients that may have scope for further development. Already used for extraction of hydrocolloids such as carrageenan and alginate, seaweed itself also offers solutions for sodium reduction, and there is an increasing body of evidence linking it with various health benefits. It is suitable for use across a wide range of food products and has had good coverage in the mainstream press, meaning consumer awareness is already high.

Finally, we may see a resurgence in the use of ancient or traditional grains such as sorghum and amaranth. The challenge here may be the price points compared with other grains, although these are most likely to find their niche in luxury and premium product ranges.

Dr Ray Winger, Institute of Food Technologists

The food industry needs to provide a greater focus on the overall nutritional balance that food, collectively, is providing consumers. Like it or not, many of the health issues that exist today are caused by what people eat. Prevention of these diseases is going to require a change in food, predominantly processed food, and this will be assisted by much more extensive nutritional research targeting disease prevention.

We are seeing an evolution of more-nutritious foods through reduction programmes - lessening added salt and sugar, for example - and some growth in the addition of micronutrients to food to improve nutrient density. Functional foods are really not providing the efficacious outcomes that medicines can achieve, so I think the relevance of individual food products as 'magic bullets' is a fantasy. Food cannot be treated as 'pills', because you cannot limit the product to a single patient, so efficacious doses will be problematic for the regulators.

In that light, I see greater roles for vitamins and minerals in foods, but these need to be biologically relevant for humans - some compounds used today are not - and used when justified for the purposes targeted by the food.

Proteins are in short supply, and the growing demand in countries such as India and China will create genuine shortages of the current protein foods, such as meat and soy. Alternative protein sources are becoming more common, and these alternative plant and animal sources, and biotechnological developments providing high-quality protein will be invaluable in the future. They need to be sustainable.

As we age, three aspects of malnutrition emerge: some micronutrients, some proteins and fibre. The quantity of fibre needed each day is difficult to achieve with the diets of the over 60s and their limited calorie requirements. Sources of quality fibre that do not create significant problems in food formulation are desperately needed for our food supply. The removal of much fibre and the dilution of the macroscopic matrix of modern processed foods with water, fat and sugar has created a situation where fibre deficiencies are endemic. These fibre ingredients need to be a natural source, not the laxative-promoting products that were chemically formulated in the '90s.

Flavour development needs to be more natural, using herbs, spices and the skills of chefs to create enjoyable and sumptuous formulated foods. Natural stocks - created without adding salt, MSG or other chemicals, and without the bitter peptide and related hydrolysed protein components - will be more widely used. These ingredients provide a flavour base for designing truly nutritious foods from natural sources and allow a greater freedom to develop clean labels.

Processed, as in fabricated, foods need a major overhaul. The progressive formulations required to make cheap food has totally destroyed the ability of the nutritional profiles of this sector to provide people with sound diets they can use to prevent diseases and maintain good health. This is exacerbated by the fast food and restaurant sectors, which still sell many products that undermine health. Curing these diet-based diseases is no longer a sustainable option.

Prevention is critical and diet plays a major role in this. While there is no such thing as good food or bad food, food collectively needs to offer a good and appropriate diet. There are many emerging offerings focusing on quality product, at a reasonable, but not cheap, price. Even the world's biggest food company has now focused aggressively on consumer health. These developments require truly nutritious and natural ingredients, not marketing hype. Scientifically supported evidence of quality ingredients capable of achieving efficacious outcomes in food is what is required. This is true for convenience foods, suitable for the over 60s, and can improve the nutritional offerings of convenience food for the younger audience.

Dr Jan Van Loo, senior manager NBD projects, Beneo

Instead of aiming for new raw materials, I think ingredient producers are getting more sustainability-minded and will focus on valorisation of existing by-streams, which, for example, are generated in fruit and vegetable processing, meat processing and even in algae processing. There are possibilities to extract and purify fibre fractions and protein fractions. Some agro-by-streams are even a source of valuable nutraceuticals such as polyphenols, speciality sugars, vitamins and sugar alcohols.

The challenge is to find a cost-effective way to extract and purify the compounds in the first place. When the ingredient is too expensive - more then a few euro cents per food application dose - there is little chance it will be applied to food products. Another challenge is to comply with the high regulatory requirements of official instances, as most of the ingredients extracted from the by-streams are likely to be 'novel food' - that is, things that were not consumed before May 1997.

The product sectors most likely to take advantage of these opportunities would probably be meat and dairy in the fast-growing markets, such as the BRIC nations, where the demand for classical ingredients, like animal protein, will have difficulty to follow the demand. Also, from a sustainability point of view, there would be incompatibilities: high water and CO2 footprint for animal protein production vs vegetal protein production.

Karin Nielsen, head of ingredients division, Canadean

By-products from any current grain or vegetable industrial processing such as proteins, pigments and functional fibres are the raw material areas I think are showing real potential for further developments.

There are a number of challenges and opportunities presented by these materials. One challenge is scalable, cost-beneficial methods of high-quality extraction. However, there are opportunities such as capitalising on the demand for more sustainable industrial ingredients to meet the increasing demand for macronutrients and natural colourants.

Food and beverage manufacturers interested in pursuing the clean-label trend are the two sectors that are most likely to benefit from these new opportunities in the market.